Christmas Shift
by hakomakura
Summary: Wilson has a late shift and House gives him a ride home.


Soft dark chocolate eyes scanned the room, and a hand ran through slightly disheveled locks. The brushing that had flattened his bangs post-shower this morning had long been removed by the constant fidgeting and the oils from his palms. There now remained a single curl, softly fallen atop his forehead while the rest of his hair was flattened by stress.

Two more patients had come in the last hour that needed immediate attention. The oncologists not normally accustomed to looking over x-rays and try and diagnose what kind of fracture a person had suffered from in a crash, was forced to do so this evening. It was the day after Christmas, and the only reason that he was on shift was because he was one of the only doctors that was still there.

James Wilson was meant to go home around eight in the evening on the twenty-fifth of December but after an emergency in the ICU, and with all the other head doctors either occupied with another patient or they had been let free to go because of vacation time, he remained there. That's exactly where Dr. Wilson should have been, a nice long vacation--on his couch (because god knows he would have not made it to the bed) had Cuddy not pleaded with him to stay the last minute.

Cameron was busy in the children's wing helping pass out presents that were left over and trying to keep the general morale boosted, Foreman was going to see his mother and father for the holidays and Chase... well Wilson wasn't entirely sure where Chase was most likely with Cameron trying to win her affections through the kids.

Wilson, a softy at heart, would give anything to be with Cameron--that is he'd rather be handing out presents and bringing smiles to the little tikes faces than be staring into a blazing light staring at:

"A compression fracture on the lower half of the left radius..." he finally concluded rubbing the bridge of his nose trying to quell a exhaustion headache that was brewing in his temples.

"Are you insane?" Wilson sighed and set the x-ray back into the patients folder. "That's not the radius, that's the ulna for Christ's sake. I finally have proof that you cheated off of me in med school." Dr. Gregory House lifted the x-ray from the desk and held it up to the light, "oh maybe your right... or is that a femur. Well it's something, to many goddamn bones to remember, you'd think they'd start labeling them."

"House..." Wilson groaned sitting down in his chair. "I can't handle your ramblings, I've been on call for," he checked his watch "Jeeze... twenty-seven hours."

"Shit, I'll go yell at Cuddy, this has to be some kind of employee abuse. And if nothing else I'll bring you back those fluffy pillows she calls tits and you can take a nice nap on them." House smirked and pivoted on his cane to leave the oncologists' office but stopped when he noticed the aforementioned Dr. Cuddy in the doorway.

"House, you are supposed to be helping in the clinic for the walk ins with minor injuries, not pestering Wilson."

"Oh but Wilson is just so much more interesting." He said with a pout but a stern look from the Dean of Medicine had House was hobbling down the hall with his signature sneer across his face.

"Wilson..." Cuddy said concerned, the young doctor lifting his head from the desk.

"Yeah, sorry. The fracture I'll take care of it." He started to stand and Cuddy shook her head, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"I'll take care of the fracture, you need to go home now. Foreman should be back in an hour and I can cover a few patients for the moment. You look exhausted ad I'd rather have you gone for a few good hours for sleep than to make a mistake here because your drowsy."

"No it's fine really with just a small cup of coffee--" Wilson paused and let out a large yawn. "I should have just enough energy to drive home..." Dropping his head and nodding to his superior Wilson grabbed his coat, switching it with his white lab coat and started to head out the door.

Wilson wrapped a scarf around his neck and popped the collar of his peacoat up to prevent the frozen crystals that were flurrying around from going down his neck, the only thing that he needed now was cold. He pulled his keys from his pocket and held them out, clicking the button to unlock it he tried to remember where he parked more than a day ago. Just as he clicked the button to signal his car, a hand swiped them from him. Seeing the uneven sway of shoulders, and the familiar pattern of a stripe leather biker jacket Wilson rolled his eyes.

"Cuddy said to go back to the clinic and help out."

"I am helping out, you are in no condition to drive my friend." House smirked and teetered back and forth from his good leg to bad, toward the direction of his bike. Wilson took a moment to understand what was about to happen and then nearly ran after him.

"No, no, no, no."

"So is that a no then?"

"I'm not getting on that contraption, especially not in the middle winter like this."

"Well what do you purpose the my dear _Wilson? _

----

Wilson didn't like House driving his car, mostly because he was going to ruin the interior by clinging to his seat as the mad man wove in and out of traffic, but he would have liked clinging onto the other doctor for dear life on the back of his bike less. "That one was red! I saw it this time, not yellow or orange."

"I swear, it was orange, not yellow and certainly not red."

"Well if you keep going at this speed than all the colors will blur together!" Wilson nearly shrieked as House took another sharp turn and skidded to a stop. "What is this...?" he said annoyed.

"A street, you drive on it and walk across it, that's called an apartment building you know what you do in there kids?" House said condescendingly.

"No House, this is your apartment." He frowned as House opened the door and started to get out.

"Oh, you mean when you said you were going home you didn't mean my house. I just assumed that whenever people talk, it's about me."

Too tired to argue and much too tired to take the stairs Wilson got into the elevator with House and leaned back against the wall closing his eyes and waiting for the mechanical box to stop. He followed House's hobbling movement to his apartment and walked in. Wilson immediately went for the couch sitting down on it.

"I'm just gonna rest here for a moment and then walk down to my car and drive home..." he said that last few words strewn in with a yawn. House nodded and walked into the kitchen, popping two Vicodin and setting out two mugs on the counter. He filled them each with water and then set them in the microwave. Once the liquid was steaming out House dropped two teabags into the mugs and balanced (very expertly if he were to say himself) two mugs in one hand and a cane in the other. He limped slowly to the living room and sat down in his chair setting the mugs down. He turned to Wilson to make some quip about the teabags but found that the oncologists was fast asleep on his couch.

House starred at him a long moment and examining his boyish face. He was, for the first time in some time, completely relaxed. The small worried wrinkles that he tended to get by his eyes or lips when one of his patients was in remission or he had to deal with a terminal child weren't there anymore. He wasn't Dr. Wilson, the head of Oncology at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital anymore. He was James Wilson, Jim, passed out from sleep deprivation on his dear old friends couch.

House smiled and shifted a bit close to him, leaning over his relaxed body House brushed Wilson's hair back, waiting for him to respond. When nothing happened House smirked and snapped his fingers in front of his face, "Hey Wilson?" he mumbled, "Quick there's a really hot dying mother, marry her and adopt her kiddies." He still didn't respond, save for the soft breaths that were leaving his pink lips. House smiled and picked up his right leg, shifting over another inch or so.

"Happy Christmas Wilson, let's give you a nice mustache to match your bushy little brows." He smiled and pulled a permanent marker from the coffee table in front of him.


End file.
